E-learning in Medicine: Are We Ready to Replace Text Books?

Students of the current era have a multitude of options to aid learning. A sound understanding of the changing trends in medical education is crucial to the accurate implementation of adequate training protocols in our curriculum. Archaic ideas and concepts must pave way for modern methodologies of instruction, with inputs from the students themselves. Our study aims to do just this, with data collection occurring at the grass root level, directly from the target audience.

We administered the peer validated questionnaire to 142 students (72 undergraduate and 72 postgraduate). The target audience was given a time frame of 03 months for completion of the questionnaire.

Two thirds of the students (59.6%) still prefer chalk and board over PowerPoint based lectures. 88.4% prefer reading from textbooks, while the rest prefer gadgets. 70.5% use their phone most of the time’ for medical education. 82.5% believe that PowerPoint presentations of topics they are being taught are essential for their education. 85.9% have used YouTube for the purposes of medical education. 88.9% believe that computer aided teaching can replace in-person didactic lectures.

Social media platforms like Whatsapp and video streaming services like YouTube have carved a firm and permanent place in the psyche of the students. ‘Anytime, anywhere’ learning modalities are now possible and at least in theory, superior to the existing curriculum. These modalities and other AI based technologies may be considered for implementation in future endeavors.